central bank. the original signs of life we ve had from him since then are some of his more recent musings on twitter in which he appears to be randomly gushing online about how delicious the food is in kyrgyzstan. i m relying on google translate. who am i to hold it against him if he believes kyrgyzstan is a completely tasty country? i think that s what he s saying. water is excellent. but that s aleksandr torshin. he s russian official one. u.s. person one is paul eriksson. and so knowing that, we can sort of get a pretty distinct and pretty hairy plot line here out of the butina court documents. quote, with paul eriksson s position with aleksandr torshin, butina sought to establish unofficial lines of communication with americans having power and influence over u.s. politics.
the judge goes on. this is a case in which there have been a lot of sealed proceedings and sealed motions and things we the public haven t been allowed to see, but this is open court in washington, d.c. as a 30-year-old russian woman named maria butina elected to change her plea from not guilty to guilty after she was charged by federal prosecutors with acting in this country as a secret agent of the russian government as part of an influence operation, to influence u.s. politics, and specifically the republican party in ways that would benefit the interests of the russian federation. the judge. quote, now, ms. betina, your lawyers and the prosecutor have given me a document of a statement of defense that describes what the government would be prepared to prove at trial about your criminal conduct. this is an important document. that s your signature on december 8th? the defendant maria butina, that is correct. the judge, and by signing it, you are agreeing this is correct and true a
duh, yeah. and then at the end of all of it, she gets deported back to russia. according to section 12 of the plea agreement, which happens on just the next page. just a remarkable turn of events. but there are a few interesting things about this case in terms of how it fits into the larger picture that we don t totally understand yet, but that may end up being important by the time we get to the end of this movie in either language. first of all, as i mentioned, this court proceeding in the butina case today, it happened in federal court in washington, d.c., and that s a court where we ve seen a lot of activity related to the special counsel s office. but robert mueller and his special counsel s office were not involved in the butina case at all. this was handled today, as it has been from the beginning, by regular federal prosecutors associated with the u.s. attorney s office in d.c. as the new york times described it, it stemmed from what officials described as a
of the maria butina statement of the offense today in court, and not in a good way. as far as we know he has not been charged. but prosecutors are spelling out a lot about him here that makes it hard not to wonder, you know, what he s up to tonight and what he s expecting for his next few days in the news. and if that s not enough, then tonight we got this new scoop from the wall street journal. this is brand-new from the wall street journal . and to the trump administration and the president, this late breaking headline from the wall street journal tonight has to feel like they were already playing tennis against roger federer. they re playing tennis against a guy who is pretty good. then that guy got a second tennis racket in the other arm, he s ambidextrous, turns out he s an octopus and each one of those arms has a racket and he s good with all of them. oh, god, don t say racket. that s the one thing they re not getting charged with yet. i mean, this is the lead from the wall
to cooperate. and this is from that single-spaced plea deal the judge warned her that she needed to read very carefully today in court. quote: your client agrees to cooperate with the office of the united states attorney for the district of columbia on the following terms and conditions. your client shall cooperate fully, truthfully, completely and forthrightly with this office and other federal state and local law enforcement authorities identified by this office in any and all matters as to which the government deems the cooperation relevant. your client s cooperation may include but will not necessarily be limited to answering questions, providing sworn written statements, taking government administered polygraph examinations, and participating in covert law enforcement activities. since she was already charged as a secret agent, presumably covert activities will not be a mystifying concept